Francisco Ruiz Massieu, the second-ranking official of Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, was assassinated Wednesday outside a downtown hotel in the latest incident in a mounting wave of violence that has shaken this nation. The 48-year-old lawyer was believed to have been a candidate for the politically powerful interior minister post in the Cabinet of Ernesto Zedillo, who was elected president last month and will take office Dec. 1.

A federal judge in Mexico City has upheld a 50-year prison sentence for the man convicted of murdering Mexico's governing party leader. Francisco Ruiz Massieu, secretary-general of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, was gunned down on a Mexico City street in 1994. In 1995 the gunman, Daniel Aguilar Trevino, and several accomplices were convicted. On Thursday, a judge upheld the 50-year sentence for Trevino, but reduced the sentences of three accomplices and absolved four others.

These are tense times in Mexico, and cartoonists have sharpened their pens to portray the issues. The ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, is in turmoil over charges that former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari's brother, Raul, masterminded the assassination of party official Francisco Ruiz Massieu. Is the PRI mortally wounding Mexico, one cartoonist wonders? And shouldn't someone investigate the investigators?

More than two months after Mexican federal investigators unearthed a skeleton they called key evidence in a notorious murder case, scientists in North Carolina are still probing its bone marrow for enough DNA to shed new light on the case that continues to rock Mexican politics. During the weeks U.S. scientists have labored over the skeleton, the special prosecutor who ordered the DNA tests has been fired. So was his boss, former Atty. Gen. Antonio Lozano Gracia, who was dismissed Dec.

An imprisoned politician with family ties to drug dealers was formally accused Thursday of helping to plan the assassination of his party's No. 2 official, and the attorney general's office said the plot is believed to reach higher into the political ranks. Three witnesses--two of them also suspects--have implicated Abraham Rubio Canales in what authorities have said was the plot to kill Francisco Ruiz Massieu.

Mexico's attorney general said Thursday night that there is not enough evidence to charge three top ruling party officials with any crimes in connection with the September slaying of the party's second-ranking official, Francisco Ruiz Massieu. In November, former deputy chief prosecutor Mario Ruiz Massieu, the victim's brother, had implicated the three--Humberto Benitez Trevino, Maria de los Angeles Moreno and Ignacio Pichardo--in a plot to cover up the assassination.

A federal judge in Mexico City has upheld a 50-year prison sentence for the man convicted of murdering Mexico's governing party leader. Francisco Ruiz Massieu, secretary-general of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, was gunned down on a Mexico City street in 1994. In 1995 the gunman, Daniel Aguilar Trevino, and several accomplices were convicted. On Thursday, a judge upheld the 50-year sentence for Trevino, but reduced the sentences of three accomplices and absolved four others.

President Ernesto Zedillo and his government moved to close ranks and consolidate short-term political gains Thursday, as investigators continued to widen a political assassination probe that instantly changed the face of Mexican politics with the arrest this week of a former president's brother. "What is left (is) clear--nobody can be outside of the law," Zedillo, appearing at rallies in the state of Tlaxcala, declared.

Federal deputies and at least one senator plotted the Sept. 28 assassination of the second-ranking official in Mexico's ruling party and planned to kill a former party chairman and other politicians, an accused conspirator told police, according to a statement released Wednesday.

Mario Ruiz Massieu, who faced accusations this week of a cover-up in the investigation he headed into the murder of his brother, a top Mexican politician, was arrested in the United States on Friday for violating U.S. Customs laws, officials said. A Mexican government official, who asked not to be identified, said Ruiz Massieu was seized by U.S. Customs Service agents at a New York-area airport for carrying undeclared quantities of cash that exceeded the $10,000 limit allowable under U.S. law.

Former Deputy Atty. Gen. Mario Ruiz Massieu says he never counted the money that day in January 1994 when his elder brother Francisco handed him eight or nine suitcases stuffed with cash. Francisco told him that it was about $3 million--a fraction of the family fortune--and Mario says he believed him.

Once the No. 2 official in Mexico's Justice Department and now accused of collusion with drug traffickers, Mario Ruiz Massieu finds himself caught in an unusual limbo between freedom in a new country and potentially indefinite incarceration in his homeland. Since he was arrested at Mexico's behest 11 months ago while changing planes in New Jersey, Ruiz Massieu has won a series of U.S. court judgments finding the criminal evidence insufficient for holding him.

June 23, 1995 | ROBERT L. JACKSON and JUANITA DARLING, TIMES STAFF WRITERS

In a stinging rebuke of Mexico's legal system, a U.S. judge rejected the Mexican government's request to turn a former top law enforcement official over for trial in a high-profile murder case, saying the evidence against him was obtained by torture. Former Deputy Atty. Gen. Mario Ruiz Massieu, 44, is accused of engaging in a cover-up while investigating the assassination last year of his brother, a top official in Mexico's ruling party. But U.S. Magistrate Ronald Hedges in Newark, N.J.

June 15, 1995 | ROBERT L. JACKSON and MARK FINEMAN, TIMES STAFF WRITERS

As a key player in the case maintained his innocence Wednesday in a U.S. proceeding, authorities here confirmed for the first time that they are investigating former Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari to determine what he knew--and when--about his older brother's alleged role in last year's murder of a top official of the ruling party. "Of course this is being investigated," Deputy Prosecutor Rafael Estrada told reporters Tuesday.

The first direct conflict between President Ernesto Zedillo's government and his ruling party took center stage in politics here Tuesday, as Atty. Gen. Antonio Lozano confirmed that a senior deputy of the Institutional Revolutionary Party will be questioned in last year's assassination of the No. 2 PRI official.

The man who fired the shot that killed the No. 2 official in Mexico's ruling party has been found guilty of murder, along with seven co-conspirators, and sentenced to 50 years in prison, officials confirmed Tuesday. The eight convictions in the killing of Francisco Ruiz Massieu support the existence of a plot that prosecutors say stretches all the way to the elder brother of former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

U.S. authorities have seized more than $9 million in Texas bank accounts bearing the name of Mario Ruiz Massieu, Mexico's former deputy attorney general--a move that Mexican and U.S. officials said was a strong, new sign that links exist between the onetime crusading prosecutor and international drug cartels. The seizure by U.S. Customs agents of two accounts at Texas Commerce Bank in Houston provided the first confirmation that U.S.

The Mexican government formally asked the United States on Monday to return Mario Ruiz Massieu, a crusading former prosecutor, to face charges here that he shielded the family of the nation's former president last year during his investigation of his own brother's assassination.

U.S. authorities have seized more than $9 million in Texas bank accounts bearing the name of Mario Ruiz Massieu, Mexico's former deputy attorney general--a move that Mexican and U.S. officials said was a strong, new sign that links exist between the onetime crusading prosecutor and international drug cartels. The seizure by U.S. Customs agents of two accounts at Texas Commerce Bank in Houston provided the first confirmation that U.S.

Federal prosecutors suspect that Mario Ruiz Massieu, the former deputy attorney general who once was Mexico's top anti-drug official, set up a "franchising operation" in key states across the nation that generated millions of dollars in kickbacks from international drug smugglers operating in Mexico from March to November, 1994.